Malaysia plans to organize durian festival in China

According to an article in the Hong Kong South China Morning Post on October 28th, the Malaysian FruitKing will organize a durian festival in Nanning (Guangxi province) between November 3rd and 5th. The organization has stated that the festival is organized by the Chinese Government and private businesses from China and and Malaysia. They also said that the event symbolizes that Malaysia supports the Chinese 'One Belt One Road' initiative.

Durians from Malaysia ripen when still hanging on trees, and afterwards it is extremely difficult to distribute the ripe durians. The Chinese government has currently only allowed Malaysia to import deep-frozen durians without peel. But, durians from Thailand can be harvested before they are ripe, so the demand for durians from Musang King has risen substantially. For the past many years, Malaysia had constantly hoped to kick open the door to the Chinese durian market. This durian festival maybe indicates that China is now allowing Malaysia to enter.

However, this has had a bad impact on Singapore because the demand on the Chinese market is too big, so Singaporean sellers worry that Malaysia will suppress the demand through price increases, causing a hit to their own business. According to reports, Singapore imported approximately 17,847 tons of durian last year, of which 93% came from Malaysia. This year, Singaporeans have started to complain that the price for durians will be higher. The price for durians from the Singaporean company Musang King is standing at about 60 Singapore dollars per kilogram (more or less 292 RMB), but last year the price was only 40 Singapore dollars (about 194 RMB).